Thus launched on a career of plunder, the judge very speedily accumulated a water bucket—useful when one wished to milk a cow—an ax from a woodpile, a kettle from a summer kitchen, a tin of soft soap, and an excellent blanket from a wash-line.
“For the boy, Solomon,” he said gently, when he caught Mahaffy's steady disapproving glance fixed upon him as he displayed this last trophy.
“What sort of an example are you setting him?”
“The world is full of examples I'd not recommend, Solomon. One must learn to discriminate. A body can no more follow all the examples than he can follow all the roads, and I submit that the ends of morality can as well be served in showing a child what he should not do as in showing him what he should. Indeed, I don't know but it's the finer educational idea!”
Thereafter the judge went through the land with an eye out for wash-lines.
“I'm looking for a change of linen for the boy, Solomon,” he said. “Let me bring you a garment or two. Eh—how few men you'll find of my build; those last shirts I got were tight around the armholes and had no more tail than a rabbit!”
Two nights later Mr. Mahaffy accepted a complete change of under linen, but without visible sign of gratitude.
A night later the judge disappeared from camp, and after a prolonged absence returned puffing and panting with three watermelons, which proved to be green, since his activity had been much in advance of the season.
“I don't suppose there is any greater tax on human ingenuity than to carry three watermelons!” he remarked. “The human structure is ideally adapted to the transportation of two—it can be done with comfort; but when a body tackles three he finds that nature herself is opposed to the proceeding! Well, I am going back for a bee-gum I saw in a fence corner. Hannibal will enjoy that—a child is always wanting sweets!”
In this fashion they fared gaily across the state, but as they neared the Mississippi the judge began to consider the future. His bright and illuminating intelligence dealt with this problem in all its many-sidedness.